LIMINALITY / THRESHOLDS

Convergences, à la Lawrence Weschler.

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"[A]n existence based on liminality and provisional presence, like television waves or information traveling by phone wire or electromagnetic light." 

—from "Cosmos" by Lidia Yuknavitch, as found in Verge

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"I write now about the calf because the image of liminality feels so accurate to grief."

"All spiritual traditions probably push us toward the threshold, the place of not knowing." 

—both from "Cattle Guard | The Calf" by Jessie van Eerden, as found in The Long Weeping

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Pastor Bri preaching upon John 3:1-17 this morning.

The threshold upon which Nicodemus stands.

"In-between" places, aka "liminal zones."

The poet John O'Donohue on thresholds.

Waiting patiently in the "in between." 

"The wind blows where it chooses..." (John 3:8)

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"To acknowledge and cross a new threshold is always a challenge. It demands courage and also a sense of trust in whatever is emerging."

"Suddenly you stand on completely strange ground and a new course of life has to be embraced. Especially at such times we desperately need blessing and protection. You look back at the life you have lived up to a few hours before, and it suddenly seems so far away."

—both from "Thresholds" by John O'Donohue, as found in To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings  

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It certainly feels as though I/we stand in "in between" times. In metaphorical liminal zones. At the threshold of something new, emerging.

May God grant me/us the strength to cross with love and mercy for all.

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On biblical stories of liminality—Noah, Lot's wife, Job, the exile of the Israelites in the desert for forty years—as examples for us:

"The kernel of these stories burns brightly with the moment of change and loss of everything, the moment that forges the soul in fire...And it seems to me that, contrary to the sermonizing of these stories, they do not reveal lessons easy to articulate."

—from "Cattle Guard | The Calf" by Jessie van Eerden, as found in The Long Weeping